Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-02-09
The Cruelty of Speculation in the Coal
Output.
Chicaco ITerald

The Cruelty of Speculation in the Coal
Output.
Chicago Herald.
With total coal area one-twentieth
the size of that in the United States, Eng
land produces each year $4,000, 900 tons
in excess of the output of the American
mines. The English mines are not sub
ject to lockouts of six months or more,
and the men who work in them are,
therefore, given reasonably steady en-
plOyment. Coal sells in London for
about one-half of its present price
in New York, Philadelphia or Boston.
The outrageous prices now asked for
caal in the United States, ranging all the
way from s. to SIS ton, are due to the
combination formed il t New York par
lor last spring. Not one cent of the advance
that has been made IN the selling price of
coal can be attribu.e ed to the increased
wages paid the men who have mined it,
Every dollar made over aud above the
usual price has gone into the pockets OF
the railroad companies and the mine
owners. The scarcity of coal, concerning
which so much is said now, is simply an
artificial scarcity. 1t is scarce as corn is
scarce when some successful operator has
got control of il. 1t is cornered.
II is roughly estimated that the actual
coal area OF the United States is about
100000 square miles. 1t is known that
the capacity OF the anthracite region of
Pennsylvania is mole than 10000, 900
tons per annum, and that it could easily
be doubled. Can any one who has seen
the poor OF the cities buying coal by the
basket or the pail, or who has seen
farmers in the far West trying to keep
warm with corn for fuel, doubt for an
instant that if the annual product of the
American coal mines should be doubled
or nearly so there would not be found
willing purchasers? Not at monopoly
prices, of course, but at prices which
nevertheless would remunerdte the III
terests engaged III its production
What would be the effect of yearly
output of sc, 100000 tons of anthracite.
instead of SO, 100000 tons, as this year :?
The mines would be in operation con-
tinually, giving q great population in
Pennsylvania an opportunity to make
living. The shipments would be larger
snd every railroad in the country would
profit by 1t, even if the rates were lower
than they are now. Coal being cheaper,
more people would buy i. and their pur-
chases would be larger. The profits be-
ing smaller. it would be necessary for
the great coal companies to handle more
OF their product, their harvest would he
large and the people would have enough
fuel to keep them warm. As it is, they
buy what they can at the monopoly price,
and il 1t does not last them or warm their
habitations sufficiently they so without
The question asked by the coal barons
at the beginning of each seasons opera
tons is not how much coal will the peo-
pie of the United States need the coming
year? but how much will they be able to
buy at monopoly rates? Last spring it
was decided to limit the supply for 1856
49, to 80, 900, 900 tons. At thu time it
was announced that the price would be
advanced 81 q ton before the close of
winte-, and this has been done. The
consumer who now, as result OF
the severity of the weather, finds
himself compelled to lay in an
extra supply of coal at an increased
price, should know that every dollar
which it costs him over and above the
usual price goes into the pockets of the
tariff-pampered monopolists of Pennsyl-
vania and New YORK, who provided for
this very thing as long ago as last May.
The cry that coal is scarce is false
hood. The United States have more coal
than all the rest of the world together.
The supply is practically inexhaustible.
Men who might be mining it are starving
in idleness that the supply may not be up
to the demand. The coal which bene-
ficent providence placed in this country
is cornered and the unconscionable rob-
bers who now pirate of scarcity know it.